A communication system and method assigns, such as by marking headers of wireless
communication packets, packet classification data to packets to define at least
one of the following classes: a control signaling class, such as in-band signaling
and control packets, a voice class, a data retransmission class, OAMP class and
a data class and wherein each class represents a different transmission priority
over a backhaul link. For wireless communication packets associated with the control
signaling class and the voice class, the method and apparatus assigns each of the
wireless communication packets with additional drop precedent data wherein the
drop precedence data defines a further packet drop priority within the control
signaling class and the voice class. The apparatus and method drops a queued classified
wireless communication packet based on a priority level of assigned drop precedent
data and based on the packet classification data.
